Google “Business Coaches Near Me”

Yesterday’s Wednesday Marketing and Management Call was one of those winners that could justify breaking it out as its own product and charging extra for it. (Relax, we’re not going to do that.) If you’re missing the calls, you really are missing a big part of the whole TaxCoach experience.

Early in the call, one of our members mentioned that he’s a lousy salesman but terrific with technical strategies. A different member suggested partnering with a business coach, as those guys are usually good salesman.

That struck a chord in my own brain. Early in my practice, I worked with a business coach who introduced me to three prospects in a single day, each of whom agreed to a $2,500 tax plan. (This was in Portsmouth Ohio, by the way, a struggling mill town on the Ohio River that’s famous now for being ground zero in Ohio’s heroin epidemic – so don’t give me the excuse that people in your area can’t afford tax planning!)

Business coaches are great referral sources. Think about it. Their clients are all business owners looking to grow their businesses. Those clients can all afford a coach, and they’ve already shown they believe in the value of coaching. Now, imagine transitioning that appreciation for business coaching into an appreciation of tax coaching . . . (c’mon people, don’t make me do allthe work here!).

At that point, I made a very specific suggestion to the 60 members on the call. “Google ‘business coaches near me,’” I said. Most of you listen to the call on your computers, so how hard can that be?

Apparently, it’s harder than I thought. Christi Bender jumped right in and told me there were 14 business coaches near her. Jeff Rochester said there were 51 near him. But they were the only ones who raised their hands like that. So I went into “shame the audience” mode and bribed everyone with Official TaxCoach Brownie PointsÒ for Googling “business coaches near me” and volunteering the number on the call. Here’s what we got:

Thom Gearhart: 2, “including me”

Diane Gardner: 3

Frederick Schmidt: 20

Susan Hightower: 14

Bev Stitely: 10, “including me”

Tommy Brown: 47

Alan Rolnick: 51

Dave Toney: 14 on Page 1

Jake Birnberg: 27

Michael O’Neill: 20

Pam Schoelles: 3

John Acker: 9

Take a look at that list of names. You’ll recognize many of them from our member success stories.That’s not a coincidence.

The folks who succeed here are the ones who actually do something with the concepts and strategies we present. (Remember the Greek goddess Nike, who said “just do it”?) I can throw out ideas until I’m blue in the face. But if I can’t motivate members to do something with them, I’m not really accomplishing anything, am I?

Still, 80% of the members on yesterday’s call didn’t respond. (No Official TaxCoach Brownie PointsÒ for you!) What about those of you who weren’t on yesterday’s call? Last I looked, we have about 9,000 readers here. Mostly tax professionals, but lots of financial advisors, an occasional lawyer or mortgage broker, and at least one possibly misguided college professor looking to glean behavioral insights to use with her students. How many of you will Google “business coaches near me” for some potentially great networking, too?